


the houston massacre

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [24]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Action, Aurors, Gen, Texas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Rosa Alvarez, head of the Houston Branch of the MACUSA Auror Office and the Regional Director for Texas, has seen a lot in her time as an Auror. But this is the worst fight of her career. The dark wizard Malegaunt, Grindelwald's lieutenant in America, has finally arrived in Houston...and has brought the war for the Greater Good right to Rosa's doorstep.





	the houston massacre

**Author's Note:**

> There’s not really any research here. Just…action. Death. Bloodshed. Earthquakes. Lightning.
> 
> [You may remember Rosa and Clayton from “the texas case”, the story of Graves’ first incident as Director of Magical Security](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10964466). 
> 
> [Additionally, Malegaunt and the concept of the Houston Massacre are shamelessly taken from one of my own fics, something upon which I never really expanded](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11649948/chapters/26208675).

Rosa hits the ground, rolls, comes up on one knee, and aims her wand at the masked man before her. “ _Infligo Fulmen_!”

Controlled lightning cracks from her wand, a miniature thunderclap leaving her ears ringing as the bolt strikes the fanatic in the chest. He’s thrown backward as his whole body contracts, the direct strike charring his clothes and knocking him out cold. Rosa doesn’t stop to see if he’s alive: she already has bigger problems.

“ _Terraemotus!_ ” a woman in the middle of the street roars.

The whole block shakes, the ground rippling and rolling as an earthquake shocks out from the epicenter where the witch stands. Rosa drops to her hands and knees, suddenly nauseated as the ground moves like the surface of the ocean. The earth itself groans, the street cracks and breaks, facades of buildings crash down all around—people scream and Rosa knows her people are getting _killed_ —

When the earthquake ends and the silence resumes, Rosa is already on her feet. The street is smoky where electrical fires have already started from downed telephone poles and a broken gas line makes the air stink. Water from a broken main vents into the air, turning half the shattered street into sludge. The witch is still standing in the middle of it all, just fine, but she’s made the mistake of turning her back on Rosa.

She runs into the middle of it all and whips her wand through the air, a cruel arc, meant to hurt, to kill. “ _Diffindo!”_ The witch screams, twisting fruitlessly, clawing at the air as blood sprays from the gash Rosa leaves across her back. She collapses, not a threat anymore. Rosa doesn’t care. She sees Clayton, down the road, helping young Andrew onto his feet; Alejandro running to her from the shattered ruins of a drugstore, blood dripping down his face; Helen helping Yolanda up, Helen with her wand arm visibly broken and Yolanda staggering like she’s broken her ankle. But they’re alive, thank God, alive.

 “Where the hell are Robert and Maria?” Rosa demands of Clayton the second he’s close enough to hear. He was supposed to be watching them. They were new—Junior Aurors, Robert just moved down from New York and Maria just graduated from Auror training.

Clayton shakes his head. “Robert’s dead. Brick hit him, caved his head in,” he says tersely.

Andrew, next to him, is sobbing; Rosa ignores him. They can grieve later. “Maria?”

“Don’t know.”

Maria’s dead, then. Rosa takes a deep breath and forces herself to stay calm and professional. She turns to the other three Aurors. “David. Jane. Where are they?”

“David’s dead,” Alejandro says. He swipes blood out of his eyes with his sleeve, ignoring it with the ruthlessness that Rosa has drilled into all of their heads. “Took a Biting Jinx to the thigh, must have hit a big artery. Bled out in seconds.”

“And Jane’s gone,” Helen says, clammy-faced, as Yolanda and Andrew tie her arm into a makeshift sling. “Concussive Curse.”

“That’s what broke Helen’s arm,” Yolanda says.

“Damn,” Rosa mutters. “Has anyone heard from the evacuation teams?”

Clayton glances around, at the settling dust and growing fires. “No. Got to assume they’ve cleared the area.”

“I they’ve made contact with the No-Maj police,” Yolanda volunteers. She’s Transfigured a shattered street sign into a makeshift crutch, refusing to go down. “Barricades are up down that way.”

“Finally some good news,” Alejandro mutters shakily.

“Tell me that the Anti-Disapparition Jinxes are up over the area,” Rosa says.

Andrew nods. “They are,” he says. “I tried—I tried Apparating to Robert, but—”

“I get it,” Rosa says. She reaches up to squeeze Andrew’s shoulder. The kid’s been through enough today. But… “Malegaunt’s still around here, then.”

“Got to be,” Clayton says.

“We need to end this,” Helen says. She clutches her wand in her off-hand.

“Fan out,” Rosa commands, already moving up the street. “In pairs. Andrew and Alejandro, Helen and Yolanda. Clayton, with me. If they’re armed and not one of ours, kill them.” Clayton follows her, holstering his wand; the other two pairs break off, moving outwards in a triangle.

No one saw this coming. There’d been no warning, no whispering of danger. In the city center of Houston, Grindelwald’s American lieutenant—a wizard who styled himself simply “Malegaunt”—had launched an attack on a large group of No-Maj civilians. As Regional Director, Rosa leads the response. At the moment, she wishes she didn’t have to.

And Malegaunt is here. She only hopes that she and Clayton find him first: the others are injured and will have trouble in a fight. Andrew’s a Junior Auror—on any other day Rosa would only have taken Senior Aurors but this happened so suddenly that she could only take people she had on hand, and now she has two dead and their blood on her hands. She can’t imagine what the hell she’s going to tell their families, what she’ll say.

But that has to wait for later. For now, she and Clayton prowl through the shattered buildings, looking for Malegaunt.

“He’ll be lookin’ for you,” Clayton says in an undertone.

“You think?” Rosa mutters. She’s painted a target on her own back, coming out over and over as a voice in support of the Statute of Secrecy. It’s not about her personal beliefs—Rosa takes issue with several of the things it’s enabled, not the least of which being the removal of children from their parents—but she’s seen what happens, here in the United States, when those children aren’t rescued. Different in other places, but Rosa doesn’t live there. In her line of work, she can’t afford to think about those other places too much.

And, more to the point, she isn’t planning to kill anybody to make a change for the kids.

They sidle through the wreckage of what might have been an automobile garage, based on the pools of rainbow-sheened oil and gasoline mixing on the ground. The toxic smell makes Rosa’s eyes water—what do No-Majs see in this stuff—and, worse, it’s flammable.

She and Clayton break out into the street. A fire rages just down the way; she can already hear the clamor of the No-Maj fire brigade. And there’s smoke everywhere, which is why she doesn’t see Malegaunt until it would have been too late.

“Looking for me?” he mocks, appearing out of the smoke. He’s tall, blonde, refined; a slice from someone’s hex has opened the sleeve of his sharp suit, but there’s no blood.

Rosa glances at Clayton and he nods slightly, never taking his eyes off Malegaunt. She gave orders to shoot on sight to the others, but she needs to do something different. “Drop your wand now and you’ll live,” Rosa says to Malegaunt. Formality.

He smiles tolerantly, as if at a child, and the smoldering rage that Rosa has been holding in check erupts into a wildfire. “I won’t surrender to someone like you. It would be beneath a man of my station.”

Clayton scowls, folding his arms. It’s a deceptive stance: Rosa’s seen him duel before, and knows he can pull his wand before she can blink. “And killing innocent people ain’t?”

“Deaths are unavoidable when working for the Greater Good,” Malegaunt says dismissively.

“The greater good?” Rosa spits.

“He’s just trying to blow a hole in the Statute of Secrecy,” Clayton drawls. “Thinks the No-Majs will notice something like this.”

Malegaunt smiles sharply. “Clever. And will they, now that you’ve called in their policemen and firemen? Now that they know we’re here?”

“No,” Rosa says. She thinks of New York, of the horror stories she’d heard of what happened after the Thunderbird floated into the clouds, of the people said to have gone mad and the people said to have killed themselves out of fear of some great unknown terror, of wizards and witches caught out in the storm who lost pieces of memory and never recovered from it. She thinks of them, and then sets it all aside. “We’ll Obliviate the city. We’ll Obliviate the _country_. We don’t negotiate with men like you, no matter what the cost.”

“Why bother with Obliviation?” Malegaunt asks in a paternal fashion. “You’ve won, don’t you see? There’s no need for my Lord to bring about his revolution, for you’ve already proven the point that No-Maj and wizard can be allies!”

“Not everyone is like that,” Clayton says. Rosa sees him circling, preparing to strike. “Ask the Russians about what’s going on over there, or the Germans, or hell even wizards back East in America. It ain’t a one-size-fits-all thing.”

The dark wizard smiles, turning to follow Clayton. “And why not make the world right for yourself, here in Texas? The world be damned, so long as the Republic of Texas stands!”

“’cause it ain’t about us,” Clayton says. He never looks at Rosa once, but she knows what he’s doing. He’s made himself the target, so that she can strike from behind. Malegaunt has underestimated her. Because she’s a woman? Her family’s from Mexico? Because, quite simply, she’s short? Rosa doesn’t know or care. All she knows is that Clayton is giving her the perfect opening, and the second Malegaunt turns far enough— “It’s about the people who could be hurt. We ain’t hurt, keeping ourselves a secret. The people out there? They’re the ones we got to worry about. Not us.”

Rosa can’t see the warlock’s face well, but the sneer in his voice is plain. “And you know what has happened because of the Statute, right here in America!”

“I know,” Clayton says levelly. “And we’re doin’ our best. Ain’t a right answer. Ain’t a good way to solve this. But I do know this: I ain’t got to be a murderer.”

“For the greater good,” Malegaunt spits, raising his wand, “I will do whatever it takes!”

Clayton fires first. He’s a quick-draw master and has a spray of conjured bullets—a spell of his own invention—raining down on Malegaunt in half a second. In half a second Malegaunt hurls up a shield and returns fire with a lance of molten metal that nearly spears Clayton through the chest. He dives aside just in time, hitting the ground and casting prone, a well-aimed Trip Jinx that nearly takes Malegaunt off his feet. The dark wizard staggers, unable to block in time, but turns the stagger into a turn that lets him take aim at Rosa. She casts a Shield Charm before Malegaunt can launch his attack and returns fire the second her shield dissipates, launching a crackle of lightning that he handily blocks.

Then Clayton’s on his feet again. He’s more limited in repertoire than many Aurors, but his skill is such that he casts faster than any of them. Projectiles rain down on Malegaunt from all sides, and whenever Clayton isn’t conjuring those up he’s setting off explosions around his opponent’s feet to keep him moving, prevent him from taking a firm foothold. Rosa’s seen great duelists in action—she _is_ a great duelist—but she’s always loved watching Clayton fight.

And Rosa’s at Malegaunt’s back, lashing out with lightning and spells meant to petrify or incapacitate, spells to steal breath from his lungs and melt his eyes from his head. She’s not as fast as Clayton but she’s versatile, and if even one of her curses sneaks past Malegaunt’s defenses he’ll be down for the count because he won’t be able to see or he’ll suffocate or he’ll simply be reduced to a comatose wreck. And they’ll finish him that way. She can’t afford anything too big, or she’ll risk hitting Clayton, and Rosa doesn’t play with friendly fire.

In any other duel they’d win in seconds. This—this isn’t like that. Malegaunt is good. Terrifyingly good. He blocks everything they cast, casting countercurses at Rosa before the spells leave her wand and shielding himself from Clayton’s attacks before the bullets launch. And he’s staying up. He doesn’t look like he’s tiring and Rosa _is_. She and Clayton have been fighting for an hour already, running through the burning ruined city looking for this bastard and taking out his followers. Malegaunt has been directing the attack from the rear and he’s fresh, energized—and if they’re not careful they’ll lose.

It’s Clayton who sees the opening. He meets Rosa’s eyes for a split second and she has no more time than that to process—to see what he’s doing—and then he fires off a Disarming Charm that Malegaunt blocks and Rosa doesn’t understand why he’s casting such a weak spell and there’s the briefest pause in the battle and she sees Clayton _lower his wand_ —

Malegaunt’s Killing Curse hits him dead on.

That’s her opening.

Clayton died to give her an opening.

In the half second as Malegaunt turns to finish her off, laughing and confident of his victory, Rosa takes aim and pours all her soul into her wand, magic boiling out of her because there’s no one else here to worry about anymore and maybe she wouldn’t care if there were—

“ _INFLIGO FULMEN MAXIMA!”_

Even with his most powerful shield, Malegaunt never stood a chance.

Lightning surges from Rosa’s wand, flooding the street and setting the gasoline behind her ablaze, coursing over Malegaunt and paralyzing him as the air sizzles like the inside of a furnace, as the incandescent heat of the electricity sears everything flammable and burns at Rosa’s face and burns Malagaunt, burns him alive, his body thrown back and forth, tearing itself apart as the lightning makes him seize and scream and _die_ —

And then it’s over.

She’s alone.

She’s alone in the wreckage of her city and her partner is dead.

Rosa kicks Malegaunt’s blackened body aside as she runs to Clayton. She drops to her knees and even though she knows, she _knows_ he’s dead, she checks desperately for a pulse, for breathing, for any sign that he’s alive.

“Goddammit, Clayton,” Rosa whispers, dropping her wand. With numb fingers, she pulls his star-shaped Texas Auror badge from the front of his jacket. Static, leftover from her spell, shocks her; she doesn’t care. She closes her hand tight around it, the edge biting into her palm. “You stupid, stubborn…”

“Director!” Helen shouts.

“Here!” Rosa calls, lifting her head even though she wants to sink down onto the ground and stay there next to Clayton.

Yolanda and Helen come into view around a building. It takes them a moment to understand what’s happening as they approach, but when they do Helen cries out. Yolanda shoves her crutch aside and sinks to the ground, pulling Rosa into a hug; Helen stands over them like a wrathful guardian angel.

They can’t afford to cry, not yet. “Malegaunt’s dead. Where are the others?” Rosa demands.

“Alejandro made contact with the reinforcements from New York,” Yolanda says. She’s shaking; Rosa isn’t sure who’s benefiting more from this hug. “They—they’re handling the last of the fanatics and starting to handle cleanup.”

“We won…he got the bastard before he went down, didn’t he?” Helen asks, staring at the twisted body of Malegaunt.

Rosa nods, biting her lip so hard it bleeds. “Killed him outright,” she whispers. Tears are finally brimming in her eyes. “But—the energy for the spell—I don’t know how he did it—”

It’s the stupidest lie she’s ever told, doesn’t make any damn sense in view of how magic works, but neither Helen nor Yolanda argue. She cries, silently; holds her dead partner’s hand while Yolanda sobs on her shoulder.

“He was going to retire,” Rosa gets out, chest shuddering with the effort of speech.

“And he didn’t just stay home?” Helen snaps. Her hands are in fists and she looks like she’s going to tear out her own hair. “He could have lived! What the hell are we supposed to tell his _wife_?”

“That he was an Auror,” Rosa says, clutching the badge so tightly that her hand aches. “He did his job until the fucking end and that’s what matters.”

Yolanda’s arms tighten around Rosa. She’s still crying, deep sobs shaking her whole body. “He saved us. He saved the whole city.”

Rosa nods, staring at Clayton, at his blank open eyes, reflecting back the haze in the sky. “He was an Auror,” she repeats again.

Clean-up teams arrive, eventually, and Rosa forces herself to stand up and direct them. President Rovius Grimsditch will be on the ground shortly, to meet with families and assess the damage himself; the Director of Magical Security Abigail Harding will be with him, and so will half the press in America. Teams of Obliviators are pouring into Houston from around the country; wizards specializing in architectural magic will be here to restore the city; No-Maj presses across the country have been stopped to prevent the story getting out. This will end. ‘Normal’ will be restored, and what people are already calling the Houston Massacre will become a story on a front page. Rosa keeps moving.

She stops only once in the rest of that day, visiting the morgue as she confirms the identities of her dead Aurors. She looks down at Malegaunt’s charred corpse, nearly unrecognizable now.

“You wanted this to be about the Statute of Secrecy,” Rosa whispers, staring at the body. “You wanted me to admit that you’re right. You know what? I don’t give a _fuck_. You killed my partner because he wanted to keep people safe. So all you got out of this is somebody who’s going to keep the rest of the world safe from men like you. And if that means I have to kill your messiah with my own two hands? I _will_.”

Clayton’s badge is heavy in her pocket and his wand sits in her holster. Rosa turns and walks away from Malegaunt’s body, steady and head held high. Time to be an Auror, to comfort Clayton’s wife, to protect her city and her country, to show the world that they won’t kneel to Grindelwald even in times like these. Time to ready herself for the fight of her life.

Rosa has a war to win.


End file.
